From September 13, 2006 to December 26, 2008 by proxy, Dave Sim kept up a daily blog called The Blog & Mail. It came to an end because his computer seized up and he decided to go back to his electric typewriter. Claude Flowers is presently inventorying the files recovered from the dead computer's harddrive.

Thursday, November 30, 2006

Dave Sim's blogandmail #80 (November 30th, 2006)

Thursday November 30 -

Hey! Speaking of don't you LOVE TwoMorrows publishing—I got to Al Nickerson's letter of October 29 where he mentions that he's writing an article for Back Issue magazine about the early issues of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and wondered if he could interview me about Turtles #8. So, his phone number is right there. It's 9:30 on a Friday night and where is an enterprising young comic-book inker going to be at 9:30 on a Friday night? You guessed it. Right next to the phone. "Hi, Al. Do you want to do the interview right now?" "Have you got the questions?" "Yeah, I've got them right here." "Okay [BEEP!] I'm recording." You can see how much or how little he uses of it in March of 2007 or so ("Those guys work pretty far ahead"). Got off the phone and went, "Hang on. Back Issue. That's TwoMorrows Publishing as well, isn't it?" And went and checked and sure enough.

TwoMorrows Publishing. Everyone LOVES them and they're taking over the world.

Al also sent a very long letter that Steve Bissette posted to the Creators' Bill of Rights discussion group. I'll admit that I probably had very little idea of what I was talking about…and what I was mostly talking about was how "Those a—holes in Vermont" (in Jim Valentino's immortal phrase which is far more affectionate on my part than I think it was on Jim's part when he delivered it back in the 1963 dust-up time period) looked to me from hundreds of miles away than how they actually were.

I was struck this time by Steve's reminder that his divorce lawyer had told him not to do anything but work-made-for-hire until his divorce settlement was finalized. I don't know if that was, indirectly, the straw that broke the camel's back but it certainly seems like a skuzzy—though financially sensible—thing to tell an artist to do. If he had told me that part before, it hadn't registered. Obviously I think that we would live in a much better society if creative freedom wasn't specifically targeted by family law in that way…and I can understand that Steve's priorities were different from my own.

This is really all I'm going to say on the subject: two things 1) I hope Steve does Tyrant again someday 2) Danny and Maia are great kids.

Oliver Simonsen, the 3D Animated Cerebus film guy, sent a nice letter October 17:

Hi Dave,

I think I speak for all of us when I say we are really excited to be working on such an amazing character: We are all honoured and grateful and hope to make this a truly amazing 3D cartoon. We've gotten some really useful feedback from the fans [he means you guys and Margaret] and we are really glad they are on board so far. Jeff seems like a great guy, and his support means the world to us. We are looking forward to seeing the website he's building for us, and his voice is made for voice-overs which will only elevate our cartoon.

There isn't a whole lot to report—like being a writer and/or illustrator it takes a lot of patience.

Oliver

Thanks, Oliver. I'm glad that we could reach an understanding which means that there will be a degree of quality control without my having to be involved with it until the ultimate thumbs up or thumbs down. It's very possible we're making history here and that wouldn't have happened without your vision and determination. Your 13-year-old son has every right to be 100% proud of his old man and I'm sure that will always be the case.